About the Book

Autumn has arrived on the shores of Lake Michigan, but Marlee Jacob, proprietor of The Berry Basket, is feeling a chill for other reasons …

With the Harvest Health Fair in full swing, Marlee makes sure to stock up on elderberry products for cold and flu season. But this year there's also a run on mulberry when an eccentric customer wants to use the dried berries to ward off evil forces. True, it's almost Halloween, but something else earns the Lake Lady has a deadly past that is connected to the famous Sable family who are in town for the health fair. A bunch of clues start to come together—and figuring out what's going on puts Marlee in a real jam …

Includes Berry Recipes!

What I Thought:

This is the fourth Berry Basket Mystery, and with this being one of my favorite series, this installment did not disappoint me. It is Halloween in Oriole Point and Piper, the Mayor's wife is gearing up with a Harvest Health Fair in which she invites health gurus from all over to attend. The Sable family is invited. The mysterious Lake Lady asks Marlee to order her several pounds of mulberries to spread around her home to ward off evil. Everyone, including Piper, tells Marlee to stay away from the Lake Lady, but Marlee feels she has something to reveal and when she disappears and a the dead body of ghost writer turns up on her property, Marlee knows she has to help her. I enjoyed this one as it is set during Halloween. The plot was well thought out and well written. I liked how elements from the past were introduced into the present, which made the story flow well and tied in all in together. I like how the author intertwines medicinal and other properties of berries into the stories. There were many suspects in this story that will keep the reader guessing until the exciting conclusion in this one. I look forward to reading more in this wonderful series.

I received a complimentary copy of this book.

About Sharon Farrow

Sharon Farrow is the latest pen name of award-winning author Sharon Pisacreta. A freelance writer since her twenties, she has been published in mystery, fantasy, and romance. Sharon currently writes The Berry Basket cozy mystery series for Kensington. The series debuted in 2016 and is set along the beautiful Lake Michigan shoreline where she now lives. She is also one half of the writing team D.E. Ireland, who co-author the Agatha nominated Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins mysteries.

Residents of Rudolph keep the spirit of Christmas alive year-round—but their joy is threatened when a group of grinches visits the town, in the charming fourth installment of the Year-Round Christmas series.

It’s the week before Thanksgiving, and Merry Wilkinson, owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, is preparing for a weekend reunion of her mother’s college friends. But when the group of women comes into Merry’s shop, Merry is met with frosty attitudes and cold hearts.

The women argue amongst themselves constantly, and the bickering only intensifies after one of the friends is poisoned. With her father’s role as Santa in danger due to his proximity to the crime, Merry will need to use all of her investigative gifts to wrap this mystery up and save Santa and her favorite holiday.

About the Author

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than thirty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Tea By The Sea mysteries, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year Round Christmas mysteries and, as Eva Gates, the Lighthouse Library series.

It’s just that I live in Rudolph, New York,
America’s Year Round Christmas destination. In Rudolph everything is all
Christmas, all the time. And we love it that way! Really, we do.

But, as the owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures
located on Jingle Bell Lane, Christmas for me means work.The frantic shopping season of November/December,
getting my float ready for the semi-annual Santa Claus parade (yes, we have one
in July also), the influx of tourists.My best friend Vicky is so busy at her bakery and café, Victoria’s Bake
Shoppe, that I hardly see her, and my boyfriend Alan Anderson is a toy maker.
You can imagine what he’s doing all season!

Then the post-holiday sales and trying to
remember to have fun to celebrate the New Year. So by the time January rolls
around I’m bushed.

Thanksgiving is my one last chance to relax
before the influx of the season.My mom
and dad always put on a turkey dinner with all the trimmings for whichever of
my siblings happen to be able to come that year, and invite any stray friends
they can find. Mom was an internationally-known opera-singer in her youth and
she collected a lot of nice things in her travels. It all comes out for Thanksgiving.
I love it! Let me explain:

I love
Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday. Don’t tell anyone in Rudolph, but I
love Thanksgiving even more than Christmas. My mom and dad always make turkey
with all the fixings – walnut and sage stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed
potatoes, gravy, green beans, a squash casserole, two types of pie. It’s my
chance to take one last long deep breath before plunging head first into the
madness of the holiday season.

I love Christmas
too - my dad is Santa Claus after all - but now that I own the store, when
Christmas Day itself arrives I’m totally exhausted. That’s a day to sit back,
feet up, mug of hot chocolate in hand, open a few gifts at my parents’ house,
and then have a hearty brunch and go to bed early before opening the shop the
next morning for the after-Christmas sales.

`Silent Night Deadly Night
by Vicki Delany

This year, my mom’s invited a group of her
college friends for a reunion the weekend before Thanksgiving.They seem a rather miserable bunch and they
don’t get on very well, but I’m sure it will all go well and they’ll have gone
home in time for us to celebrate the holiday in true Wilkinson style.

Find out if Merry gets the Thanksgiving she
wants in SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT, coming August 27 from Berkley.

About the Book

Val Deniston is catering the debut of Bayport’s newest bookstore—but the death of a customer is about to draw her into a real-life murder mystery …

Suzette Cripps has been occupying a spare bedroom at Val’s granddad’s house while she takes classes in this Maryland Eastern Shore town—but she’s always seemed a little secretive and fearful, and any talk about her past is a closed book.

After winning the costume contest at the Halloween-themed bookstore party, Suzette is mowed down by a hit-and-run driver—and Val and her grandfather start to wonder whether it was really an accident or if someone was after Suzette. Granddad is a little distracted by his new enterprise as a ghost-buster, but as Val talks to Suzette’s coworkers and fellow creative writing students, she grows more convinced that the dead woman’s demons weren’t imaginary—and that she needs to rip the mask off a killer …

Includes delicious five-ingredient recipes!

What I Thought:

This is the sixth installment in the Five Ingredients Mystery series by Maya Corrigan. I have read a couple in this series and this one was just as good as the others that I have read. In this one, Val's granddad, Don's new border Suzette, who is pretty mysterious, turns up dead from a hit-and-run the morning after a Halloween costume contest at the grand opening of the new bookstore in town. The police are not sure if the hit-and-run is an accident or a crime, but Val is sure because of Suzette's mysterious ways that it is a murder. This story was well written with a good plot. The author does not give a lot of information on the victim, Suzette while she is still alive in the story, but reveals more about the mysterious girl during Val's investigation into her death. There are a lot of twists and turns in this story that kept me guessing. There are also many suspects allowing for many red herrings in this story. The author did a great job intertwining the murder investigation into the towns Hallow festivities. This one kept my attention from the very beginning till the end. I enjoyed this one immensely, as I usually enjoy a good cozy set during Halloween. The author did a great job with this one.

I received a complimentary copy of this book.

About Maya Corrigan

Maya Corrigan blends her love of food and detective stories in her Five-Ingredient Mystery series set in a fictional historic town on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The first book in the series, By Cook or by Crook, was published in 2014.

Before taking up a life of crime (on the page), she taught university courses in writing, detective fiction, American literature, and drama. She won the 2013 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Unpublished Mainstream Mystery / Suspense. Her short stories, written under the name of Mary Ann Corrigan, have been published in anthologies.

When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, tennis, trivia, cooking, and crosswords. Her websitefeatures trivia about food and mysteries.

Monday, August 26, 2019

Susan was born and raised a Southern California girl but is grateful to have lived on the Oregon coast and in the Rocky Mountains of northern Utah. She’s now enjoying living with her husband in the incomparable beauty of the Redwood forest, nestled against the rugged coast of Northern California.

Susan raised a tribe of children, making ends meet as a registered nurse and lactation consultant, and now her tribe members have tribes of their own and she doesn’t get to see enough of them. She loves to travel and is thrilled with a good movie or a great book, but writing is her passion. She writes almost anything, especially epic fantasy and romance.

Susan would love to hear your comments. Please review her book at your favorite retailer or at Goodreads. Take a peek at her website, susantietjen.blogspot.com, and/ or drop her a note at:

Grace has given up on romance, on almost everything, since Rick Fleming betrayed her faith in him five years ago. Given her constant struggle with bad luck (her friend Murphy), being insanely accident prone, and having been the target of endless ridicule growing up, she has no reason to trust anyone.

Rick made some mistakes as a boy, and as a young man, his worst was hurting Grace Evans. His heart still belongs to her, even if she doesn’t know it. Unfortunately, in the last confrontation between them, she demanded he never speak to her again.

Now, Grace’s best friend (and Rick’s sister) Hannah has invited her to a ten-day summer work-vacation to babysit Hannah’s teen cousins. A palatial cabin, a patio boat on the lake, and all the comforts of the rich and famous at their fingertips? A vacation made in heaven.

At least until they arrive and Grace finds Rick there. And neither can leave. Rick’s car is in pieces in the garage, and Grace forgot her driver’s license at home.

How will Grace survive it? Can she find a way to forgive? Can Rick learn to take

responsibility for his past mistakes? And even if they succeed, what will they do when Rick’s most recent wantabe girlfriend shows up on their doorstep, determined to make Rick hers?

Down South Cafe owner, Amy Flowers is in over her head. Operating a cafe while hosting the first Farmers' Market in Winter Garden has her swimming in apples. And when an elderly woman calls the cafe, pleading for a delivery for her upcoming party, Amy relents, feeling compelled to help the desperate customer.

But when she arrives, the woman is slumped over her kitchen table, and Amy is catapulted into the middle of a small town crime. Guilt-ridden for not arriving earlier to save the woman, she sets out to unravel the mystery surrounding the woman. Now, between running the cafe and dealing with the chaos of the farmers' market, Amy is squeezing in a murder investigation, a run-in with her boyfriend's mom, and her own mother's quirky life decisions. Life can't get any worse...or can it? This cafe owner needs a break--in the case.

The cake decorating series features a heroine who is starting her life over in Southwest Virginia after a nasty divorce. The heroine, Daphne, has returned to her hometown of Brea Ridge to open a cake baking and decorating business and is wrestling with the question of whether or not one can go home again. She enjoys spending time with her sister, nephew, and niece, but she and her mother have a complicated relationship that isn’t always pleasant. Daphne has also reconnected with her high school sweetheart and is pursuing a rekindled romance while desperately trying to put her past behind her.

Kerry Vincent, Hall of Fame Sugar Artist, Oklahoma State Sugar Art Show Director, and Television Personality says the series is “a must read for cake bakers and anyone who has ever spent creative time in the kitchen!”

Says Dean Koontz, #1 New York Times bestselling author, “One day I found myself happily reading . . . mysteries by Gayle Trent. If she can win me over . . . she’s got a great future.”

The Embroidery Mystery series features a heroine who recently moved to the Oregon coast to open an embroidery specialty shop. Marcy Singer left her home in San Francisco, along with the humiliation of being left at the altar, in order to move to Tallulah Falls and realize her dream of owning her own shop. She takes along her faithful companion, a one-year-old Irish wolfhound named Angus O’Ruff. She makes many new friends in Tallulah Falls, but she also makes a few enemies. Thankfully, her best friend Sadie MacKenzie and her husband Blake run the coffeehouse right down the street from Marcy’s shop, the Seven-Year Stitch; and Detective Ted Nash always has her back.

Publishers Weekly says, “Fans of the genre will take kindly to Marcy, her Irish wolfhound, Angus O’Ruff, and Tallulah Falls. This is a fast, pleasant read with prose full of pop culture references and, of course, sharp needlework puns.”

Pat Cooper of RT Book Reviews says, “If her debut here is any indication, Lee’s new series is going to be fun, spunky and educational. She smoothly interweaves plot with her character’s personality and charm, while dropping tantalizing hints of stitching projects and their history. Marcy Singer is young, fun, sharp and likable. Readers will be looking forward to her future adventures.” (RT Book Reviews nominated The Quick and the Thread for a 2010 Book Reviewers’ Choice Award in the Amateur Sleuth category)

I live in Virginia with my family, which includes her own “Angus” who is not an Irish wolfhound but a Great Pyrenees who provides plenty of inspiration for the character of Mr. O’Ruff. I’m having a blast writing this new series!

DISCLAIMER:

Because of FTC regulations: All reviews on this site are my own personal opinion and are not influenced by the authors or publishers in any way. I do these reviews on my own in my own words. Unless otherwise noted in the review, I receive a complimentary copy of all books in exchange for my honest review, if I receive the book from another source or for a monetary charge, I will note it in the review.

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